Google is now requiring its employees to get their weekly molecular COVID-19 tests before entering the facilities or the offices of the tech giant.
(Photo : by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 20: Google's offices stand in downtown Manhattan on October 20, 2020 in New York City. Accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to illegally monopolize the online search and search advertising markets, the Justice Department and 11 states Tuesday filed an antitrust case against Google.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - OCTOBER 20: Google's offices stand in downtown Manhattan on October 20, 2020 in New York City. Accusing the company of using anticompetitive tactics to illegally monopolize the online search and search advertising markets, the Justice Department and 11 states Tuesday filed an antitrust case against Google.
Google and Weekly COVID-19 Tests
According to a news story by CNBC, the search engine giant issued an online memo to all of its full-time employees on Jan .14, Thursday, which explained the new COVID-19 testing policies of Google.
The health chief of Google, Karen DeSalvo, said in the employee memo that those who want to enter the facilities and offices of the tech giant need to present a negative molecular COVID-19 test result first.
On top of that, the Google health chief further added that anyone who wants to enter the premises of the tech giant is also required to share their status of vaccination.
Not to mention that they are also obliged to wear face masks that are surgical-grade while they are inside the Google offices.
Google Requires Weekly COVID Tests
Meanwhile, as per the report by The Verge, the spokesperson of the tech giant, Lora Lee Erickson, went on to confirm the memo that CNBC has obtained, saying that there is a new temporary COVID policy that Google is implementing.
A picture taken on August 28, 2019 shows the US multinational technology and Internet-related services company Google logo application Amazon displayed on a tablet in Lille.
The spokesperson echoed the employee memo, confirming that "anyone accessing our sites in the US are expected to obtain a recent negative COVID-19 molecular test before coming onsite."
The health chief of the tech company also stated in the memo that the new policy in place is in response to the highly transmissible variant of the novel coronavirus.
As such, DeSalvo even shared with Google employees that the Omicron variant of COVID has overtaken the Delta variant as the dominant strain in the United States.
Google's Free COVID-19 Test
Erickson added that the search engine tech giant offers COVID tests for free.
To be more precise, The Verge said in the same report that the American tech firm is providing both of its full-time and contract employees free-at-home PCR-based nasal swab tests.
However, some contractor workers claim that the molecular COVID-19 tests, which give away negative or positive results in merely a few minutes, are only being given to its full-time employees.
The Alphabet Workers Union previously said on its Twitter account that the contractor employees of Google only get access to the PCR-based swab tests.
But the spokesperson of the tech behemoth denies this. Instead, she said that even its contractors could access its on-site molecular testing.
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Written by Teejay Boris
